Former ESPN reporter Charly Arnolt slammed her former employer, WNBA player Brittney Griner, transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, and retired professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe during a recent interview.
The 35-year-old sports broadcaster and TV personality spoke exclusively to the Daily Mail, saying for five years she couldn’t be her true self while working for the sports television network, and she’s done holding back, offering opinions on several controversial athletes.
Arnolt criticized Griner, who spent nearly a year detained in Russia, for saying it was a “crime” not to allow biological men to compete in women’s sports.
EXCLUSIVE: 'Brittney Griner is a PUPPET for the Biden Administration, Lia Thomas is a bigot,' says Charly Arnolt https://t.co/kzo9BmybwF pic.twitter.com/3GmE62DKpn
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) May 22, 2023
“Brittney Griner should be very thankful that she wouldn’t have had that obstacle leading up to this point because she might not be playing in the WNBA if she would have,” said Arnolt.
“I also think that just calling it a crime is taking it one step further, and that’s the scary part, is now it’s not just saying, ‘Oh, this is wrong,’ we’re criminalizing,” she added. “It’s very much the Left’s disposition to take dissenting viewpoints and criminalize them.”
Arnolt went on to describe Thomas, a biological male who identifies as transgender and competed on the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team, as the “biggest bigot that I have encountered in recent times because [Thomas] is forcing [the swimmer’s] own beliefs onto other people and saying that if you don’t believe in this, then you’re a hateful person.”
“You [Thomas] were a mediocre athlete in terms of male competition, and then you decided that you wanted to jump up the ladder and enter into the women’s competition,” she added. “You are built differently than a woman.”
“Anyone who tries to make the argument that there is a gender spectrum, you can believe whatever you want, but science will tell you, the DNA will tell you, there was a man and there was a woman,” Arnolt continued. “I don’t care how you want to identify; at ground zero, that’s who you are. I find it offensive as a woman when a man decides that just because they have decided to live their life and identify differently, that now they can enter into a space that belongs to women that they have fought so hard for and just completely obliterate the success and opportunities that they should have.”
The broadcaster felt similar about Rapinoe, who she blasted for supporting the rights of biological males who identify as transgender to participate in women’s sports.
“Suddenly she’s turning around after she retires from playing for the national team and says, ‘Yeah, I totally I totally believe that males should be able to play with women,'” the sports reporter said of Rapinoe.
“She’s promoted equality and women’s rights and the ability to be able to share in their success, that is almost completely the opposite to what she’s put forth,” Arnolt added.